The other day on MORE I read a couple of articles that gave me pause. The authors of Why Are We So Not Into Sex? and Not Interested In Sex? You’re Not Alone wondered if they should be lamenting or heaving a sigh of relief that, really, sex just wasn’t that important to them any more. The articles kept niggling at me long after I read them.
I freely admit that I have been dating Tall Slow Talkin’ Texas for a little over a year so my sex life is still in that getting better and better stage. I’m not with someone I’ve been married to for 25 years where the lovemaking (and the marriage!) has had a chance to get a little stale <yaaawwn!>. But, I was with my husband for 18 years so I ‘get’ that it might be a challenge to keep the intimate side of things zippy.
But still, it’s sad that so many of us appear to be so take-it-or-leave-it about our sex lives. Having been widowed for 15 years, there have been plenty of times that I had no man on the scene and I missed the intimacy. I missed being in touch with and expressing the sensual side of me. Isn’t that what most of us want out of sex...intimacy? A chance to connect and merge briefly with an ‘other’? It puts us back ‘in’ ourselves.
Both authors alluded to how busy life is, how stressful. How hard it is to have a great relationship. If we’re not feeling like it’s one more thing to squeeze in, we’re pushing to find the right book, the right technique, the right gear to make it fantastic, and an available slot on the day planner. We’re either overachieving at it, or shoehorning it in to an overscheduled calendar.
No wonder it’s not so great. To make any aspect of life really good, it needs full time and attention, slowing down and relaxing, not forcing it. Are our relationships and sex lives becoming one more casualty of our overly multitasked lives? And, is that a trade-off we want to make?
When is the last time you just made out for an hour or so with long, slow kisses? Laid naked, bare skin to bare skin, with the length of your body pressed along his and fell asleep with your head on his shoulder? Stroked his hair? Hugged him from behind and planted little kisses on the back of his neck? Spent time sitting on the deck looking at the full moon, leaning back against him with his arms around you, and felt a tingle as he kissed the back of your neck?
Make that kind of thing a regular practice, and the sex and the relationship just might get a lot better. Is it easy to make it a priority in my busy life? No. But, I do because the intimacy, the touch and yes, the sex that results, makes my life much deeper and richer. I would miss it terribly if I didn’t have it.
It does take time and attention, but, for me, the pay off is more than worth it.
